Entertainment

'The Sims 4' Lets the Characters Get Really Weird

It’s been a long wait for fans of The Sims to get a new update to the popular game. Now, they only have a few months left before the fourth installment will unleash its particular brand of interpersonal fun.

This franchise from Maxis has always had a penchant for the silly, and that tradition looks to continue with the delightfully goofy Sims 4. We sat in on a demo presentation of the game at EA’s booth during E3, and two of the developers walked us through the updates in the new installment.

Part of the fun in this game will comes from the ability to customize Sims characters. The physical personalization includes the series' most nuanced character creation systems yet. Any feature has an easy-to-use slider system for making the exact avatar you want. Whether you’re recreating your own set of features or you want to create an original individual, you’ll be able to control everything from the space between eyes to the width of forearms.

Personality traits are also an important facet to your Sims’ gameplay. When you create an avatar, you’ll select that Sim's aspiration — the long-term goal that he or she is trying to achieve. They will each also be endowed with a helpful trait related to that end goal. After you’ve chosen the aspiration, you can choose additional traits for your Sim. As we saw in the demo, these choices can have a profound impact on how the Sims will behave as individuals and how they will interact with each other.

After seeing the new creation tools, we took a tour of how the Sims can interact. The team has clearly taken every opportunity to allow for strangeness to take place. A Sim designed by one Maxis developer was a nerdy girl given “bro” traits so she could hang with the guys. This led to interesting, playfully aggressive interactions when she encountered "bro"-like male characters.

This also impacted which characters she got along with. An elderly gentleman at the park was bored to sleep by her discussion of Star Wars, spoken in the classic Sim gibberish language. Some activities come more naturally to Sims based on the personalities they are given. Another Sim we saw became more fit when he worked out in an angry mood.

Despite the complexity of the systems at play for the characters and their advanced emotions and intelligence, The Sims 4 promises to keep things simple for the player. Whether it’s creating an avatar or a house, the tools you have for orchestrating stories in the game are designed to be clear and easy.

The integrated gallery offered a prime example of this mindset; it puts any creations by other players just a click away, so players can enjoy the fruits of others’ creative labors. The Sims 3 contained a similar feature, but it was much more complicated to use. The integrated approach should be a big improvement that keeps the focus on playing within the Sim world rather than getting lost in menus.

Image: EA/Maxis

The demo highlighted other features of the upcoming game. Players will find unexpected interactions with the world while exploring the neighborhoods; for instance, you can cut down trees in the park and grow them back at your house.

But even with these improvements to the game, storytelling holds the central focus. Consider the options of the personality creation tools: Sure, you could create a Sim who embodies the stereotype of a fraternity brother, a geeky scientist or a supportive housewife. But the game really opens up with strange combinations. For instance, the demoed Sims hosted a house party that Kim Jong-un crashed and set on fire (in this world, Jong-un is a baking aficionado).

The Sims 4 promises to be a kooky adventure in psychology, personal interactions and weird fun. It’s scheduled to launch on PC on Sept. 2.

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